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Because that wasn’t like Jo Lena. She had always been as loyal as she was stubborn.
Guilt stabbed him. He had hurt her enough to drive her straight into the arms of another man.
He must put the past out of his mind and deal with Jo Lena here in the present. Or not deal with her. He needed to get himself together and just ignore her. Avoid her.
His old room surrounded him peacefully. He sat down on the chair at the side of the bed, kicked the bootjack out from under it and stuck one heel into it, pulling carefully. Boots finally off, he began to peel the dirty clothes from his battered body, focusing on keeping his mind blank and all regrets and memories at bay.
This physical pain was enough to keep him busy. He had no need to dwell on his emotional hurts, too.
He levered himself up and went straight into the shower, standing for a long time in the tingling sluice of hot water, letting it relax some of his muscles and wash some of the ache out of his back. Soaping every inch he could reach without yelling in pain, shampooing his thick hair and rinsing took a long, blank time, and he was thankful for it.
Finally, he made himself shut off the water, step out and towel off. Cleaning up had made him feel a lot stronger.
And it actually made him smile to find that he still fit into his old, battered Wrangler jeans. He put on the most worn pair because they were the softest, and then, after clean socks and boots, his favorite, faded T-shirt he’d bought long ago when Billy Joe Shaver had played Gruene Hall and he and all three of his brothers had gone to hear him together.
Long ago and far away.
That opening line from one of the songs they’d heard started running through his head. Yes, that night seemed decades ago and thousands of miles away. But today it was now and he was here. On the Rocking M. Back home.
He had to go downstairs and face them—all but John, who was gone forever. John wouldn’t be mad at him for not going to his funeral. John would take up for Monte if he were here this morning, even if they had been on opposite sides of the religion question.
He walked to the window and looked out over the ranch. John had been closer to him than to the others because for so long they’d been the young ones, bossed around by the big brothers. They’d staged their little rebellions, though.
Monte grinned to himself. Thinking about John was driving away that shaky feeling inside him. He could hold his own with Clint and Jackson.
But then, while he walked carefully down the stairs and through the entry hall and the great room, he wasn’t so sure of that. He just needed peace. And time alone. And an empty head.
And an empty heart. He didn’t want to look at Jo Lena and see the girl he used to know and the woman he might never know all rolled up into one magnificent package that made his heart skip a beat.
She was the first thing that met his eye, though, when he crossed the threshold into the dining room. Jo Lena. And the rest of the women and babies. It didn’t even seem like home, there were so many women and babies.
None of them belonged to him.
It was as unsettling as walking into a whole herd of unpredictable bulls to try to find his place at the table. There was a baby in a high chair on one side and Lily Rae on the other. His father and John were gone. Their absences screamed at him.
“Monte,” Lily Rae called, the minute she saw him. “I want to sit by Monte.”
Monte’s jaw tightened. He ignored her.
Jackson looked up, saw him and they limped toward each other to shake hands.
“Looks like you’re about as bunged up as I am,” Jackson said. “That must’ve been a whale of an argument you had with that bull.”
“Ah, but you oughtta see the shape he’s in,” Monte said, and everyone laughed.
He felt himself relax a little as Jackson introduced him to his wife, Darcy, and Maegan, their curly-haired, red-headed baby girl with wide blue eyes the very color of Jackson’s. Then Delia and LydaAnn were hugging him.
“Careful, girls, careful. Remember he’s hurt,” Bobbie Ann said, coming in from the kitchen with a big pan full of hot biscuits.
His sisters were careful with him. And they were telling him they were glad he was home.
But, as they let him go, they gave him looks that let him know they were pretty put-out with him for taking so long to get home. That was all right. They were truly glad to see him, even if they were probably going to give him a piece of their minds later on.
“Monte,” Lily Rae said again. “I want to sit by Monte.”
Bobbie Ann jumped right in, spoiling her rotten.
“Of course you can sit by Monte,” she said, as she waited for Jo Lena to move one of the gravy bowls and a platter of sausage to make a place for the biscuits.
She looked up at Monte, her blue eyes sparkling with happiness.
“Son, will you sit at the end of the table? You’ve made a new young fan this morning.”
“Monte’s my big brother,” Lily Rae, beaming, announced to the world in general.
“You better watch him,” LydaAnn said, teasing her. “That Monte’s full of tricks.”
“Not as much as I am,” Lily Rae said firmly.
Everybody laughed but she ignored that. She didn’t care about getting attention right then because, small as she was, her whole purpose was to help hold the chair as Monte maneuvered his painful body into it.
Great. This was the final humiliation—being taken care of by a child.
“If that bull broke your leg, Monte, don’t walk on it,” Lily said, her piping voice cutting through all the rest of the conversation in the room. “I’ll get you my grandpa’s wheelchair.”
“It’s not broke,” he snapped, much more harshly than he intended.
He clamped his mouth shut. This was ridiculous. Why wouldn’t Jo Lena distract the child?
“But then, what would poor Grandpa do?” Jo Lena said softly.
“Use his walker,” Lily Rae said earnestly, “’cause he needs th’ zexercise.”
Bobbie Ann chuckled with the others, then she said, “My heart’s so full this morning, I need to be the one to say the blessing.”
Everyone bowed. Except Monte. He stared straight down the length of the table. He still was no hypocrite. And, six years later, it was still a fact that nobody was going to tell him what to believe.
“Monte! Bow your head,” Lily Rae rasped in a loud whisper.
Startled, he shot her a fierce look. She glared right back at him.
Jo Lena gently laid her hand on the back of Lily’s head and the child bowed it then, but before she closed her eyes, she gave Monte one last, sharp glance upward from beneath her long lashes.
In spite of his irritation, he had to suppress a grin. The kid had spunk—just like her mother.
Bobbie Ann said the blessing, thanking God for the food and for Monte’s homecoming. Asking God to heal his body. Monte stared out the window behind his mother’s chair and tried not to think about her words.
He would just as soon not be called to God’s attention. Look at the shape he was in. His whole life as he’d known it was gone. God wasn’t interested in him.
As soon as Bobbie Ann was done, Lily Rae piped up. “Monte didn’t bow his head.”
Everybody turned to look at him. He scowled at Lily Rae, which made everybody laugh but her.
Lily Rae, frowning worriedly, turned to Bobbie Ann.
“We have to teach him manners,” Lily said.
That brought an even bigger laugh.
“Monte never did have any manners,” Clint said. “We tried to teach ’em to him, didn’t we, Jackson?”
“Sure did.”
Bobbie Ann smiled at the little girl, then threw Monte one of her famous looks.
“Yes, we do, sugar,” she said. “We’ll work on his manners.”
“Monte, why didn’t you close your eyes during the prayer?” Lily Rae asked.
He busied himself crumbling biscuits and drizzling gravy onto them. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d go away.
Maybe all of them would forget about him and talk about something else.
No such luck.
“Yeah, Monte,” Clint drawled. “I’d think you’d want to bow your head and close your eyes and thank God for showing you the way home.”
Monte’s stomach tightened.
But not so much that he couldn’t eat. This was the first home-cooked food he’d had for months. The gravy smelled heavenly.
“Ma,” he said, “I haven’t had a decent biscuit since I’ve been gone and no restaurant in the world can make sausage gravy like yours.”
“Well, at least you remember Ma’s cookin’,” Jackson said. “For the last several years we were star-tin’ to think you’d lost either your map or your memory.”
Monte shot a defiant glance at him and then one at Clint.
He’d have to have it out with his brothers before too many days went by. But then, he had known that for six years now.
“Why do you have my mommy’s horse?” Lily Rae said, attacking from another direction.
She was just like her mother. Same determination. She was going to make him talk to her, one way or the other.
He looked at her then, and tried his fiercest glare. Her wide, blue eyes never wavered. She took a big bite of a biscuit oozing with honey.
“Annie’s my horse,” he said finally. “I bought her at a sale.”
Lily stared at him thoughtfully while she chewed.
He could feel Jo Lena’s amused eyes on him. Delia’s, too. Everybody was listening.
“Annie was my mommy’s horse since she was a little foal,” Lily Rae said as soon as she could talk again.
“Yeah,” Delia put in, “she was. I remember when Annie was born, and when she was two I remember Jo Lena used to ride her.”
Delia’s voice was full of suppressed laughter.
Suddenly, aggravated as he was, Monte felt he was really home. Delia, at least, was going to treat him the same way she used to.
Well, to be truthful, so were Jackson and Clint, even if their baby brother was now thirty-one years old. Great irony in that.
He threw his sister a warning glance but, as always, she only laughed at him and raised her eyebrows, demanding an answer as Lily Rae asked another question.
“Are you going to sell Annie to us?” Lily said.
If Jo Lena thought this mouthy little girl was cute enough to make him change his mind about that horse, she had another think coming. He hadn’t bought the mare just so Jo Lena could own her again.
Matter of fact, at this moment, he couldn’t quite remember the reason he had bought her. Maybe for old times’ sake—memories had flooded through him like a river when he saw Annie come up the ramp onto the sale podium.
No. He had bought her for the foal she carried. The Quick Tiger and Sunny Meridian bloodlines could be a better cross to get a great cutter than most people might think.
“No,” Monte said shortly. “There’s no reason to sell her to you. You live on the same place with Annie and I’ll let you ride her anytime you want to.”
This shocked Lily Rae, who looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Nuh-uh! Mommy and me don’t live here. We live at our house!”
She turned to Jo Lena for confirmation.
Reluctantly, Monte stopped eating. Thoroughly annoyed, he glared at Jo Lena.
“You said…”
“You jumped to conclusions,” she said coolly. “I have my own room here—to change in. I ride nearly every day.”
“’Cause I like to play at Lupe’s,” Lily Rae said, naming the wife of Manuel, the ranch foreman. “She takes care of me and Maria.”
She took a long drink of milk, holding the glass with both hands.
Then she smiled at Monte with her milk mustache shining above her lip.
“I can ride, too,” she said, “and Mommy says Annie is a perfect horse for me.”
His whole family was watching and listening as if this was a movie.
Well, too bad. Let them think whatever they wanted. They already judged him as selfish to the core, so he’d just prove them right.
“I’ll let you ride Annie but I won’t sell her,” he said firmly. “Annie’s a good mare and I have plans for her.”
